I'm just a 15 year old high school student in the Philadelphia suburbs with a love for food. I have an apprenticeship at Lacroix at the Rittenhouse, and will be writing about my experiences there, as well as anything else that strikes my palate.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Ant Trap
Ants have been crawlin cross my kitchen counter recently. I wanted to do something about it.
I dipped this Chile de Arbol in sugar water (aka the incredibly refreshing city punch: 1 part sugar 1 part water) and set it out in the counter.
Some ants are more attracted to protein than sugar. I suggest spraying them with bleach solution from a spray bottle and using silicon caulk to stop up the access to the house. The bleach clears away the pheromone trail that they follow, and without that they don't know where to go. Then I recommend Grant's Ant Stakes for the place where they are coming in, if you can find it. If you can't just put them all around the foundation of the house. It has poison bait that they take back to the hive and it kills all the rotten little devils.
Equal parts Borax (in the laundry detergent aisle) and powdered sugar, mixed with enough water to make a medium-thick paste. I just leave a tupperware on the counter near their entry point. The ants consume it, return home, die and are eaten by their compadres, who also die. It works within a couple of days. Be careful, though, of any pets because this mixture would be toxic to them!
Terro Liquid Bait worked for me. :) It makes more ants appear at first (which is freaky), but it kills them all within a day! Safe around pets and food. Also, cleaning my counters with straight white vinegar each night helped some. Good luck! Those can be pesky!
5 comments:
Some ants are more attracted to protein than sugar. I suggest spraying them with bleach solution from a spray bottle and using silicon caulk to stop up the access to the house. The bleach clears away the pheromone trail that they follow, and without that they don't know where to go. Then I recommend Grant's Ant Stakes for the place where they are coming in, if you can find it. If you can't just put them all around the foundation of the house. It has poison bait that they take back to the hive and it kills all the rotten little devils.
OK, we have established that you are not Michealangelo, John Keats or the Orkin man.
Grow some horehound in your garden. Ants hate it, so do flies. While you're buying herbs, get some bee balm to attract bees.
Equal parts Borax (in the laundry detergent aisle) and powdered sugar, mixed with enough water to make a medium-thick paste. I just leave a tupperware on the counter near their entry point. The ants consume it, return home, die and are eaten by their compadres, who also die. It works within a couple of days. Be careful, though, of any pets because this mixture would be toxic to them!
Terro Liquid Bait worked for me. :) It makes more ants appear at first (which is freaky), but it kills them all within a day! Safe around pets and food. Also, cleaning my counters with straight white vinegar each night helped some. Good luck! Those can be pesky!
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